The business of mobile network operators is based on controlling and billing their customers (the users of mobile networks).
Traditionally mobile network concepts and technologies have been network operator-centric, that is, the network operator has been responsible for offering the services available in the network. Thereby, controlling access rights and collecting billing information has been easy to arrange for the network operators.
However, the newer concepts and technologies are based on open Internet standards and additional services offered by third parties, who may be completely independent of the network operator, whose network their customers are using. The services are provided to mobile terminals through gateways, which are usually administered by the network operator. Different gateways are used for different types of traffic (SMS, MMS, WAP, HTTP, e-mail, instant messaging, streaming and so forth). The gateways provide connectivity between terminals and service providers systems. That is, the users may be allowed to completely by-pass network operator's applications. Naturally, the mobile network operators are nevertheless trying to maintain their position as a single control point for mobile networks for controlling access rights and collecting billing information. The use of billing functionalities offered by the network operators are reasonable also in view of the external service providers, since that way they do not need to implement sometimes complex billing systems, but can instead concentrate on their core business. In addition, in many countries, the operator is responsible for the traffic that is flowing in their network and thus the operator must know what that traffic is and must have measures to control the traffic flow.
Furthermore, network operators have access to certain valuable data (network capabilities), such as terminal location, terminal capabilities or characteristics of used connection (for example available bandwidth) that can provide added value for services offered by external service providers. Some service providers need to have access to this information in order to offer their services.
Therefore, the network operators still need to control the traffic on the network level, or in other words, to understand the traffic (protocols) in order to be able to handle access control and billing decisions.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show two prior art arrangements for implementing information gathering from network traffic of mobile terminal users in mobile networks and controlling thereof.
In FIG. 1, each gateway has been integrated to network operator systems, which need information about network traffic or which may control network traffic. Such network operator systems are for example billing system, location system and client capability system. The system comprises two gateway elements 101 and 102 in an operator network. The gateway elements may be for example an MMS gateway and a WAP gateway. Service providers 103 and 104 are respectfully connected to the gateway elements 101 and 102 over Internet. By means of the functionality provided by the gateway elements these service providers provide services to mobile subscribers 105 and 106, which are connected to the gateway elements via mobile network. Herein it must be noted that the gateway elements need not be physically separate devices. Alternatively, they may be software processes running on the same server. Further one service provider may be connected to more than one gateway element and equally one mobile subscriber may be connected to more that one gateway element.
The gateway elements 101 and 102 are connected to (integrated to) network capability systems of the network operator, that is, to a prepaid/postpaid system 107 (billing system), a client capability system 108 and a location system 109. This means that the gateway elements have been implemented so that they are able to employ the functionalities offered by the network capability systems.
In this arrangement each gateway operates as a separate entity. The gateways 101 and 102 are implemented so that they understand the traffic that goes through them. They are adapted to take care of accounting and billing by creating billing tickets (Call Detail Record, CDR) on the basis of fixed or modifiable logic. Further they may be adapted to use some (predefined) logic for granting/controlling access to different services or systems, for using client capabilities obtainable from the client capability system 108, or for using location information obtainable from the location system 109.
The problem in this arrangement is that each gateway needs to be adapted to properties of each network capability system that is used, that is, management and integration has to be done separately for each system. Thereby, for example modifying or expanding the system is burdensome. Additionally a separate solution is needed for each traffic type as the gateway needs to understand the traffic, and the solution does not scale well, as different users may have different rules for billing and access control. Also the network capability systems vary from operator to operator, thus adding additional burden in integrating the gateways with various different network capability systems.
In FIG. 2, an external traffic snooping system 205 collects information from network traffic and provides it to network operator systems, which need information about network traffic. The system is otherwise similar to the system of FIG. 1 except that now the gateway elements 101 and 102 are not connected to (or integrated to) network capability systems of the network operator. Instead, the traffic snooping system 205 is connected to (or integrated to) a prepaid/postpaid system 107 and possibly to some other operator systems that need to collect information about the traffic in the network.
The system comprises snooping means 201 and 202, which are located on the signal path between the mobile subscribers 105 and 106 and the gateways 101 and 102, respectively. The snooping means 201 and 202 are connected to the traffic snooping system 205. Alternatively, the system might comprise equivalent snooping means 203 and 204 located on the signal path between the gateways 101 and 102 and the service providers 103 and 104, respectively. The principle is to have an arrangement, wherein each message/connection passes by snooping means. It is also possible that the snooping means are included in the gateway or that the gateway is adapted to route all traffic that goes through it via snooping means.
By means of the snooping means the traffic snooping system 205 sees the traffic flowing in the network and can extract information from the flow. The traffic snooping system is adapted to listen to the traffic in the network and parse billable/controllable features from it. For example, the traffic snooping system 205 is adapted to create billing tickets (CDR) on the basis of some predefined rules and the traffic that is seen by means of the snooping means 201 and 202. However, the traffic snooping system does not fully understand the content of the traffic or network capabilities. Further, the traffic snooping system cannot stop the traffic flow by itself, but only to signal information about the traffic to other systems, which may be capable of stopping the traffic.
The problem in this arrangement is that the traffic snooping system cannot contain a full replica of gateways' internal state machine that handles the traffic flow. (If it would, it would implement the gateway functionality described in FIG. 1.) Thus snooping is always superficial, as the traffic is not fully understood. The snooping system may understand traffic in a fundamentally different way compared to the gateways and all traffic features may not be extractable in a superficial snooping. Furthermore, the system cannot do anything with encrypted traffic. Compressed traffic may generate huge processing loads and memory consumption, as the snooping system has to uncompress it before trying to parse it. And as mentioned above, external systems are needed for stopping the traffic flows.
On the basis of the description above, a new solution is needed for gathering information from traffic flowing in communication networks and for controlling the traffic.